CTEL

Test-Taking Tip

February 8, 2010
By

As my loyal readers may remember, I passed the dreaded CTEL test last June. Having a CLAD certificate (which passing the CTEL gives you) is the only way to remain employed as a teacher in California, and a lot of teachers are going through a lot of stress these days as the deadline for passing looms. The pe and math teachers at our site have been particularly stressed about it. Several didn’t pass the first section (the one with all the lingo and language acquisition theory) the first time, and were really worried about the retake in December. Some of them asked for advice on passing. “You’re an English teacher; you know what a morpheme and a phoneme are, and you’re used to writing essays and stuff (there are three “open ended response” essays over the course of the three sections). No wonder you didn’t have any problem.” My tips for them came down to four things. “You can game this test, especially the essays. This is the kind of thing where the test writers have a party line, an ideology. They want to hear their own words back. “One. Read the book. Focus especially on the vocabulary and the little scenarios that

Read more »

Friday Follow-Ups

October 3, 2009
By

Just some follow-up on some things I noticed I’ve left hanging. *Still haven’t heard from the DA about my possible vandalism charge. Wait…I never finished that story, did I?  (Here’s the beginning of the story.) After the cop came to the school and didn’t get to talk to me, he came to my house the next day, Saturday. I get attitude from the git-go. He says the guy who almost ironed me wants to have me charged with vandalism for making a dent in the side of his truck with my wristguards. Lucky it wasn’t my head, and you’re interviewing me in a hospital bed. Vandalism is a misdemeanor. I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation. But the bottom line seemed to be that, with no witnesses except those involved, he had a he said/he said sort of thing on his hands, and was trying to get me to crack and confess. When he left he said he would write up his report, and then the DA’s office would decide whether there was a case or not. Great. The statute of limitations on charging me is two years. The incident was in February. Supposedly, according

Read more »

Mailbag: The Holy Trinity

July 24, 2009
By

Sr. Enda (my seventh grade teacher) would be appalled that I used the title phrase outside the context of the  Catholic Church. But in my seventh grade language arts classroom, my Holy Trinity consists of Father Vocabulary, Son KBAR (reading/writing), and the Holy Spirit of grammar/mechanics. (My ninth grade English teacher referred to the last as the Great Grammarian in the Sky.) Okay that’s a bit of a metaphor stretch, as I squeeze 5 things into 3, but I think you get the idea. A language arts curriculum can seem like it has a million things in it, and the task of trying to integrate them all so they somehow fit together seems daunting. And it’s not like we English teachers have a rigid sequence of skills/concepts that have to be taught in a certain order. I mean we do, sort of, but there’s a lot of overlap and repetition, and it’s not like  in math, where (the math teachers insist) you have to learn x before you can learn y and so on. In fact, most English teachers bridle under any outside attempt to sequence their curriculum. But this freedom can be a bit intimidating: What goes first? What

Read more »

CKD

July 22, 2009
By

Yesterday morning I woke up to the following message written on the bathroom mirror: “Crush, kill, destroy – in his sleep.” Now let’s all date ourselves, and try to remember where we have heard the phrase “crush, kill, destroy” before. No cheating by Googling (or Binging – but that sounds loud). I’ll give you a minute. My wife says she wrote that on the mirror to make sure she remembered what I said when I was talking in my sleep. I have known since I was a kid, that though I don’t dream very often, when I do I usually talk about it in my sleep. Three younger brothers will let you know right quick. Anyway, all I remember dreaming about was a reenactment of my CTEL testing experience, with the lady asking me what was in my clear container (green tea). “Beer. I thought I might need a cold one while I was testing.” I remember the guy next to me laughing, and the lady making a funny look and setting my bottle on the back counter, but I don’t remember saying, “Crush, kill, destroy.” I hope this isn’t a sign; the results of the test are released Sunday

Read more »

CTEL in SF Part III

July 3, 2009
By

(Ok. I’m lagging. It IS summer after all. But I told myself I’d try to  stay in the groove for the summer, and post (kinda) regularly; there are people who teach on a different schedule, and right now aren’t able to  go camping for a week at beautiful Refugio Beach. And they might like some new material now and then. Though if we don’t stop the Terminator from closing our state parks, nobody will be camping anywhere.) Anyway, my last post left me holed up at the Holiday Inn in San Francisco, the day after the last day of school, studying for the CTEL. Early Saturday morning, I got to the test site at beautiful Mission High School and snaked a beauty off-street (free) parking spot. I was there an hour before reporting time, so I ate my muffin, drank my green iced tea from my clear plastic jug (no labels; could be used for cheating), and hung out in the cafeteria where they herded all of us after checking for cell phones and “any device with an on/off switch.” I half-read the misspelled posters touting the nutrition and energy that come from eating vegetables in season, grooved on the

Read more »

Random Featured Post

“There’s already something on the back of mine.” (Also: Racial Harmony.)

It was our first day back in the classroom after 8 days in the library. We were all glad to be back. “Oh, my clicker…how I’ve missed you.” One of them actually said that. OMG. What a day. Full of action, and laugh after laugh. First there was the video. YouTube is blocked in our district. Our head of IST keeps bleating about CIPA and how YouTube doesn’t filter, and…anyway, we can’t use YouTube. But finally, they created a workaround for us. We have to do things from home rather than from school, but it works OK. We find the YouTube video we want to use, and copy the URL. Then we go to the district’s “safe video portal” and paste it in. Then we can approve our own video, and use the safe portal to show it at school. It’s a bit clunky, but it works fine. Yesterday I added a video. I hadn’t even showed it yet, when I got an e-mail from my principal. I have only added a couple of videos before, but both of them were of the nutty variety, rather than the “educational” sort.  One of them is near the top of the most [...]

more -->


Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

Archives

February 2012
M T W T F S S
« Jan    
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
272829  

Recent Comments

  • mrC commented on It’s Go Time!@Sarah-Most excellent! Keep up the good work, and don't let any of them talk you out of it. Glad to hear your kids recognize the value too. Fight the good fight!
  • Mrs. M~ commented on Illin’Feel better soon! There is nothing worse than being at school and trying to be "on" when you feel like death.
  • Sarah commented on It’s Go Time!I just came across your blog...I am a second year teacher and I am currently reading The Outsiders aloud to my seventh graders. I read it to them last year, too. I catch a lot of criticism for reading it to them...but they LOVE to have me read to them. I actually had a group
  • joan commented on Illin’I'm on day two of out-with-the-crud. I needed the rest. Hope you're in tip top shape by Monday!
  • mrC commented on “The Sub Used One of Your Sticks!”That one oughta be strung up like they used to do to horse thieves.
  • Heather commented on “The Sub Used One of Your Sticks!”The last sub I had left no note at all and broke the arm of my spinny chair by leaning back in it so far that he fell in the floor. The kids all said he was the best sub ever. I politely asked the school secretary to never have him sub in
  • mrC commented on The Future of Space Travel@Heather: Gawd I hate that. I think I even posted about it awhile back. @Kelli: This reminds me of high school. I went to a Jesuit high school (all boys) and for our Friday football rallies, we would import cheerleaders from other schools to be a part of the rally. And the girls would always begin
  • Heather commented on The Future of Space TravelMy eighth graders just have the habit of prefacing every question with, "I have a question." And announcing "I'm done" when they complete an assignment.
  • Kelli commented on The Future of Space TravelIs it bad that I sometimes start my stories with "Okay, so...."...? I guess the kids have rubbed off on me. Sigh.
  • Kelli commented on Blogging the Scoring Session (Part I)Ugh! Been there. I have been to those "Scoring and Rubric" type meetings in two different states now... Not fun, and not entirely informative, either.
  • Meg commented on No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)There was a district I student taught in that hand the no fail policy. I child could not be held back a grade, even if they did absolutely nothing the whole year, until they were in high school. It took most of the middle schoolers about 3 seconds to realize they didn't have
  • Kelli commented on No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)You know, that whole "no-zero" policy goes hand-in-hand with the "no-failure" or "no-retention" policy, and my school district is a definite contributor to this madness. I can understand the desire to stop giving zeros and MAKE the kids do the work (giving countless opportunities until successful), but I have been in a situation where
  • commented on Obligatory Santa VideoWe have an unofficial "no zero" policy. It takes a little extra effort on the teacher's part to get all of the students to complete their assignments but we have made it work. The thing that was most helpful was instituting a "homework detention" that is separate from discipline detention. If a

Links

Privacy Policy